Question on assembling first 2600 program

[CodeMonkey666]

I am trying to assemble that calculator program for the Atari 2600, using DASM and Notepad as my text editor. Now, I am not quite sure what I am doing, so here's what I did (but it isn't working). I saved the calculator program. I saved it in the directory DASMbinDOS in the dasm22007 file. I then went as far into this directory as DOS in the command prompt window. I then typed in: dasm clock003.asm -f3 -oclock.bin . I have the calculator code saved as "clock003." The computer said, "Warning: Unable to open 'clock003.asm.' " And then, "Complete," on the next line. It made a .bin file called clock.bin, like the guide I'm using says, but this .bin file contains 0 kilobytes. What am I doing that is wrong? I also tried renaming the clock file as "clock003.asm" but that just gave the same result.

[CodeMonkey666]

Oh, whups, I notice that this should have gone into the 2600 Programming for Newbies Section; oh well, I don't think it matters

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I saved the calculator program. I saved it in the directory DASMbinDOS in the dasm22007 file.

Following your description you should have saved it as clock003.asm.

[CodeMonkey666]

Okay, thanx, that fixes the problem, however, now it won't work. I get a 4 KB BIN file, so I click and then drag the BIN file over the Z26.exe thing and then the screen goes black but that's it. And then that's it, just a black screen. There's no clock or anything. What am I doing wrong now?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

...so I click and then drag the BIN file over the Z26.exe thing...

What exactly are you doing here?

[Nukey Shay]

Sounds like he's using Windows to open Z26. But I just associate the .bin extention to open with Z26 as one of it's options...so I can just right-click/open a .bin file without dragging anything.

 

@CodeMonkey666

Can you post the .asm? If all you get is a blank screen, the code probably has something wrong with it or otherwise was not compiled correctly by Dasm.

[CodeMonkey666]

The digital clock program was written by Chris Cracknell. What I did is I went to the site with it and copied all the code from top to bottom. I then went and pasted it in Notepad and then saved it as "clock003.asm." I then went and through the command prompt, I used the DASM assembler to assemble the program. It did so and a 4 KB file named "clock.bin" appeared in the DOS folder, since that is where the DASM assembler itself is located and where I had the "clock003.asm" file saved. I then right-clicked on the clock.bin file, clicked copy, then I went into the Z26 folder, clicked paste, and the clock.bin file appeared in that folder as well. I then clicked and dragged the clock.bin file over the z26 exe file. The screen went all dark. I waited and waited but then when I clicked ctr-alt-del to bring up the Windows Task Manager, it said that z26 was "Not Responding" and so I shut it down. So I dunno what is wrong; if I am at fault or the code is. For emulators like SNES9x or ZSNES or Nestopia, I always just open/start up the emulator and then I open the game file from within the emulator and start it up; I tried that with z26 but it didn't work. I read somewhere where it said about dragging game files over the z26 exe to make them work (I think), so that's why I tried that. Here is the code:

 

;---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

; * Subject: [stella] 2600 Digital Clock (source code)

; * From: crackers@hwcn.org

; * Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 14:31:50 -0400 (EDT)

 

;---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

; Here's the source code for that final digital clock programme.

; Feel free to employ and distribute this code however you may wish.

; Both the source code and the binary are public domain.

 

; -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

processor 6502

 

VSYNC = $00

VBLANK = $01

WSYNC = $02

NUSIZ0 = $04

NUSIZ1 = $05

COLUPF = $08

COLUBK = $09

PF0 = $0D

PF1 = $0E

PF2 = $0F

SWCHA = $280

INTIM = $284

TIM64T = $296

CTRLPF = $0A

COLUP0 = $06

COLUP1 = $07

GP0 = $1B

GP1 = $1C

HMOVE = $2a

RESP0 = $10

RESP1 = $11

 

;RAM

 

TEMP = $80 ;2 bytes for temporary data

SECS = $82 ;seconds counter

MINS = $83 ;minutes counter

HOURS = $84 ;hours counter

JOYDEL = $85 ;joystick delay variable

JOY1ST = $86 ;joystick first move variable

SPRITEA = $87 ;8 bytes for the first sprite

SPRITEB = $8F ;8 bytes for the second sprite

RMINS = $97 ;real minutes

RHOURS = $98 ;real hours

FRAMES = $99 ;frames counter

 

org $F000

 

start SEI

CLD

LDX #$FF

TXS

LDA #$00

 

zero STA $00,X ;looks familiar, right?

DEX ;typical zeroing routine

BNE zero

 

lda #$01 ;now we set up all our variables

sta CTRLPF

lda #$0C ;set our starting time at 12:00

sta HOURS ;just like a VCR, eh? Except it doesn't blink

lda #$3C ;00 minutes

sta MINS

lda #$ca ;nice pretty green for our sprites

sta COLUP0

sta COLUP1

lda #$07 ;make them good and fat

sta NUSIZ0

sta NUSIZ1

lda #$3C ;initialize the frame and seconds counters

sta FRAMES

sta SECS

 

main JSR vertb ;main loop

JSR time

JSR draw

JSR clear

JMP main

 

vertb LDX #$00 ;vertical blank, We all know what this is about

LDA #$02

STA WSYNC

STA WSYNC

STA WSYNC

STA VSYNC

STA WSYNC

STA WSYNC

LDA #$2C

STA TIM64T

LDA #$00

STA WSYNC

STA VSYNC

RTS

 

time ldy #06 ;just load Y ahead of time for #of sprite lines

lda #$3C ;60

sec

sbc MINS ;subtract the clock minutes from 60 to get the

sta RMINS ;real minutes since clock counts down

cmp #$00 ;see if it's 00 minutes

beq min0

cmp #$32 ;see if it's more than 50 minutes

bpl min5

cmp #$28 ;see if it's more than 40 minutes

bpl min4

cmp #$1E ;see if it's more than 30 minutes

bpl min3

cmp #$14 ;see if it's more than 20 minutes

bpl min2

cmp #$0A ;see if it's more than 10 minutes

bpl min1

 

min0 lda zeros,y ;minutes must be less than 10 so load 00 sprite

and #$F0 ;strip the first 4 bits

sta SPRITEA,y ;store it to sprite A memory

dey

bpl min0 ;get next sprite line

lda #$00 ;less than 10 minutes

jmp minload ;go to where we load the first 4 bits of sprite

 

min5 lda fives,y ;minutes must be 50+ so load 55 sprite

and #$F0 ;strip 1st four bits

sta SPRITEA,y ;store it to sprite A memory

dey

bpl min5 ;get next sprite line

lda #$32 ;50+ minutes - you'll need this number later to

jmp minload ;load the second half the sprite data

 

min4 lda fours,y ;minutes must be 40+

and #$F0

sta SPRITEA,y

dey

bpl min4

lda #$28 ;40+ minutes

jmp minload

 

min3 lda threes,y ;minutes must be 30+

and #$F0

sta SPRITEA,y

dey

bpl min3

lda #$1E ;30+ minutes

jmp minload

 

min2 lda twos,y ;minutes must be 20+

and #$F0

sta SPRITEA,y

dey

bpl min2

lda #$14

jmp minload ;20+ minutes

 

min1 lda ones,y ;minutes must be 10+

and #$F0

sta SPRITEA,y

dey

bpl min1

lda #$0A ;10+ minutes

 

minload STA TEMP ;the accumulator had the 10s of minutes

LDA RMINS ;now we subtract the 10s minutes from the real

sec ;minutes to get the 1s minutes to act as a pointer

SBC TEMP ;for the data tables for 2nd half of sprite

ASL ;double the number

TAX

LDA numblk,x ;load the first half of the sprite data address

sta TEMP

lda numblk+1,x ;load the second half of the sprite table address

sta TEMP+1

 

ldy #$06 ;number of lines in the sprite (-1)

msload lda (TEMP),y ;get the sprite data

and #$0F ;strip off the last 4 bits

ora SPRITEA,y ;combine the 1st half with the 2nd half

sta SPRITEA,y ;put it back in the sprite memory

dey

bpl msload ;get the next line of data

 

ldy #$06 ;preload number of sprite lines (-1)

lda #$18 ;24 hours

sec

SBC HOURS ;subtract the counter hours to get

STA RHOURS ;the real hours value

cmp #$00 ;see if it's 12:00 am

beq hour0

cmp #$14 ;see if it's 20+ hours

bpl hour2

cmp #$0A ;see if it's 10+ hours

bpl hour1

 

hour0 lda zeros,y ;load the zeros sprite data

and #$F0 ;strip the 1st four bits

sta SPRITEB,y ;store to the 2nd sprite memory

dey

bpl hour0

lda #$00 ;same deal as with the minutes

jmp loadhrs ;but now we load the second half of the hours data

 

hour1 lda ones,y

and #$F0

sta SPRITEB,y

dey

bpl hour1

lda #$0A

jmp loadhrs

 

hour2 lda twos,y

and #$F0

sta SPRITEB,y

dey

bpl hour2

lda #$14

jmp loadhrs

 

loadhrs STA TEMP

LDA RHOURS

sec

SBC TEMP

asl

tax

lda numblk,x

sta TEMP

lda numblk+1,x

sta TEMP+1

 

ldy #$06

hsload lda (TEMP),y

and #$0F

ora SPRITEB,y

sta SPRITEB,y

dey

bpl hsload

rts

 

numblk .word zeros ;where all the sprites are at

.word ones

.word twos

.word threes

.word fours

.word fives

.word sixes

.word sevens

.word eights

.word nines

 

draw LDA INTIM ;check to see if it's time to draw a frame

BNE draw

sta WSYNC

sta HMOVE

sta VBLANK ;turn the screen on!

 

;insert display kernal

 

ldx #$3F ;okay, this display kernal sucks, but I'm not doing

blow1 sta WSYNC ;much here so I didn't go for anything fancy since

dex ;this is just a demo. This wouldn't be the way you

bpl blow1 ;do things in a game, but it works for this.

sta WSYNC

nop ;See... you'd never do something weenie like this

nop ;in a real programme

nop ;

nop ;

nop ;but when I was experimenting with this programme

nop ;I just had a whole bunch of ";nop" lines here

nop ;and I removed the ";" until I got the spacing more

nop ;or less where I wanted it

nop

nop

nop

nop

nop

nop

nop

sta RESP0

nop

nop

nop

nop

nop

nop

nop

sta RESP1

 

ldy #$06

sload lda SPRITEB,y

sta GP0

lda SPRITEA,y

sta GP1

sta WSYNC ;you wouldn't do something weenie like this

sta WSYNC ;either in a real programme, but it was an

sta WSYNC ;easy way to make each sprite 8 lines high

sta WSYNC ;and I was more concerned with making a working

sta WSYNC ;and accurate clock than a nice display.

sta WSYNC

sta WSYNC

sta WSYNC

dey

bpl sload

lda #$00

sta GP0

sta GP1

 

ldx #$48

blow2 sta WSYNC ;now we just blow the rest of the unused scanlines.

dex

bpl blow2

rts

 

 

clear LDA #$24 ;set timer for overscan

STA TIM64T

LDA #$02 ;clear the screen and turn off the video

STA WSYNC

STA VBLANK

LDA #$00

STA PF0

STA PF1

STA PF2

sta COLUPF

sta COLUBK

 

LDA #$3C ;this is the clock routine itself. it counts

DEC FRAMES ;down from 60 frames, and then decreases the

bne joy ;seconds, which count down the minutes and then

lda #$3C ;the hours.. etc. For whatever reason my 2600

STA FRAMES ;wasn't running at exactly 60 frames a second

DEC SECS ;so there were two lines inserted to correct

bne joy ;timing accuracy problems

STA SECS

DEC SECS ;here's one. Kept me from losing a second every

DEC MINS ;minute

bne joy

STA MINS

LDA #$18

INC SECS ;here's the other. It kept me from gaining a

DEC HOURS ;second every hour.

bne joy

STA HOURS

;now my timing inaccuracies may have been caused

;by either my V-blank, V-sync, Overscan, or

;display being a few scanlines too long or short.

;theoretically if all my lines were bang on,

;I wouldn't have needed those two seconds counter

;corrections. But with them inplace, it allows me

;to be a little looser with my code which works for

;me. It may still gain or lose a second every 60

;hours, but I can live with that. And since I'll

;be employing this clock in a virtual pet game and

;not a swiss made olympic time piece, a little

;inaccuracy won't matter.

 

joy lda SWCHA ;load joysticks

ora #$0f ;strip the data for player #2 joystick

cmp #$ef ;up

beq up

cmp #$df ;down

beq down

cmp #$bf ;left

beq left

cmp #$7f ;right

beq right

lda #$00 ;no movement

sta JOYDEL ;reset the joystick delay variable

lda #$01 ;reset the first move variable

sta JOY1ST

jmp oscan ;finish off the overscan

 

up lda HOURS ;check to see if we've run out our hours

cmp #$01

beq oscan ;yep, then ignore the movement

inc JOYDEL ;increase the joystick delay variable

lda JOY1ST ;check to see if this is the first move in this

cmp #$01 ;direction.

beq now1 ;if it is then change the variable now

lda #$1E ;nope then see if there's been enough of a delay

cmp JOYDEL ;to change the variable yet.

bne oscan

now1 lda #$00 ;reset the joystick delay and set the first move

sta JOY1ST ;indicator to "no"

sta JOYDEL

dec HOURS ;decrease the hours counter

jmp oscan

 

down lda HOURS

cmp #$18

beq oscan

inc JOYDEL

lda JOY1ST

cmp #$01

beq now2

lda JOYDEL

cmp #$1E

bne oscan

now2 lda #$00

sta JOY1ST

sta JOYDEL

inc HOURS ;increase the hours counter

jmp oscan

 

left lda MINS

cmp #$01

beq oscan

inc JOYDEL

lda JOY1ST

cmp #$01

beq now3

lda #$1E

cmp JOYDEL

bne oscan

now3 lda #$00

sta JOY1ST

sta JOYDEL

dec MINS ;decrease the minutes counter

jmp oscan

 

right lda MINS

cmp #$3c

beq oscan

inc JOYDEL

lda JOY1ST

cmp #$01

beq now4

lda #$1E

cmp JOYDEL

bne oscan

now4 lda #$00

sta JOY1ST

sta JOYDEL

inc MINS ;increase the minutes counter

 

oscan lda INTIM ;see if the timer has run out

BNE oscan

STA WSYNC

RTS

 

zeros .byte %11100111 ;sprites are stored upsidedown, and there

.byte %10100101 ;are two copies of each number in each sprite

.byte %10100101 ;location. The unwanted number is stripped

.byte %10100101 ;with the AND command (AND #$0F for the right

.byte %10100101 ;number stripped, AND #F0 for the left)

.byte %10100101 ;then any two numbers can be combined with an

.byte %11100111 ;OR command. Neat huh?

 

ones .byte %11100111

.byte %01000010

.byte %01000010

.byte %01000010

.byte %01000010

.byte %11000110

.byte %01000010

 

twos .byte %11100111

.byte %10000100

.byte %10000100

.byte %11100111

.byte %00100001

.byte %00100001

.byte %11100111

 

threes .byte %11100111

.byte %00100001

.byte %00100001

.byte %11100111

.byte %00100001

.byte %00100001

.byte %11100111

 

fours .byte %00100001

.byte %00100001

.byte %00100001

.byte %11100111

.byte %10100101

.byte %10100101

.byte %10000100

 

fives .byte %11100111

.byte %00100001

.byte %00100001

.byte %11100111

.byte %10000100

.byte %10000100

.byte %11100111

 

sixes .byte %11100111

.byte %10100101

.byte %10100101

.byte %11100111

.byte %10000100

.byte %10000100

.byte %11000110

 

sevens .byte %10000100

.byte %10000100

.byte %10000100

.byte %01000010

.byte %00100001

.byte %00100001

.byte %11100111

 

eights .byte %11100111 ;This code is ©1997 by Chris "Crackers" Cracknell

.byte %10100101 ;and is placed in the Public Domain by the author.

.byte %10100101 ;Anyone is free to employ and distribute this code

.byte %11100111 ;as they see fit.

.byte %10100101 ;

.byte %10100101 ;

.byte %11100111 ;

;

nines .byte %00100001 ;Well... if you're going to use this code in a

.byte %00100001 ;"Doomsday Machine" to destroy the world, then

.byte %00100001 ;I would rather you didn't. But otherwise, knock

.byte %11100111 ;yourself out with it.

.byte %10100101 ;

.byte %10100101 ;Actually... if the "Doomsday Machine" is just in

.byte %11100111 ;a game, then it's okay to use the code.

;

org $FFFC ;Unless it's like the movie "War Games" where the

.word start ;computer running the game is hooked up to a real

.word start ;"Doomsday Machine" then it wouldn't be a good idea.

[CodeMonkey666]

http://www.atariage.com/2600/programming/2...in/clock003.asm

 

---Oh and here is the link to the source code in case it came out fuzzy in the last post---

[Thomas Jentzsch]

http://www.atariage.com/2600/programming/2600_101/bin/clock003.asm

Compiles perfect here.

 

I suppose you don't start the resulting ROM correctly. Do other game ROMs work?

[Nukey Shay]

That would be my next guess...since Z26 (on my computer) seems to have problems with folders that contain spaces in the name. Try putting the rom file in Z26's folder before running it.

[CodeMonkey666]

I did do that. I copied the ROM file over into z26 and tried to use it there, but it didn't work. I'll get some game roms though and try those; maybe the emulator itself is screwy for some reason.

[vb_master]

Try PCAE